Steven Kestner elected chairman of the Cleveland Museum of Art

View full sizeGreg Donley, Cleveland Museum of ArtSteve Kestner is taking the helm of the Cleveland Museum of Art's board of trustees.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- R. Steven Kestner, a veteran Cleveland business lawyer, community volunteer and passionate fly fisherman, will help steer the Cleveland Museum of Art to its centennial in 2016 as the new chairman of its board of trustees.

On Monday, the trustees elected Kestner, 57, executive partner of the law firm Baker & Hostetler, to a five-year term. He’ll succeed Al Rankin Jr., chief executive of NACCO Industries, who served as president of the board starting in 2006.

“It’s a tremendous institution, and we want to make sure more people realize it, especially in this area,” Kestner said of the museum.

He added that he’s excited to serve in what he called a “support role” to help museum director David Franklin, who joined the museum a year ago after having served as deputy director and chief curator of the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.

The Cleveland museum is nearing completion of an eight-year, $350 million expansion and renovation, set for 2013-14, and will mark its 100th anniversary two years later.

The expansion, designed by architect Rafael Viñoly, has included the renovation of the main level of the museum’s 1916 building, completed in 2008; the opening of the new East Wing in 2009; and the renovation of the ancient Egyptian, Greek, Roman and medieval galleries in 2010.

The next milestone is the completion of the museum’s skylighted central atrium at the end of 2012, followed by completion of a new West Wing by the end of 2013.

Kestner said his job is to help the museum gear up for major exhibitions and other programs after a period in which it devoted much of its energy to design, construction and fundraising. He’d also like to see the museum expand its traditional fundraising base beyond Cleveland.

“I have every expectation we’re going to meet those goals,” Kestner said Friday in an interview, speaking about the need to make sure the museum justifies the massive investment poured into it by the community.

“There’s a lot of work to be done, and expectations are very high,” he said.

So far, the museum has raised $230 million toward its project. To help pay construction bills while raising donations, it has sold $165 million in construction bonds through the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority, pledging to retire the debt with additional fundraising.

To facilitate the borrowing and possibly provide cash for construction, the museum received permission from Cuyahoga County Probate Court to divert up to $75 million of income from its art-purchase endowment.

As the museum’s president since 2006, Rankin saw the institution through the surprise departure of its popular and respected former director, Timothy Rub, who left in 2009 after three years in Cleveland to lead the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Deborah Gribbon, former director of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, led the museum in the year leading up to Franklin’s appointment.

“Timothy did some very wonderful things for us, but I think David’s the right guy going forward,” Rankin said.

Under a new management structure, also announced Monday, the museum is changing leadership titles to reflect the positions more accurately.

Franklin will serve as the museum’s director, chief executive and president. The board’s leader will be called the chairman from now on. Previously, the board had both a chairman and a president.

As trustees grappled with the complexity of running a construction project while keeping the museum open, Rankin and his predecessor, James Bartlett, served as board president.

Trustee Michael Horvitz, also a former president, served as chairman of the board alongside Bartlett, and as co-chair alongside Bartlett when Rankin became president.

Rankin and Horvitz will now serve as advisory chairs. In addition, the three former presidents of the museum, including Bartlett, Michael Sherwin and Alton Whitehouse, will hold the title of chair emeritus.

Kestner, born in Columbus, earned a bachelor’s degree at Ohio Wesleyan University, followed by a law degree at Ohio State University. He joined Baker & Hostetler early in his law career and has served since 2004 as national executive partner of the firm, which has 750 lawyers in 11 offices nationwide.

Kestner also joined the museum’s board of trustees in 2004, after having gotten to know Sherwin, Rankin and Barlett through business projects.

Kestner describes himself as “not an art person,” but instead as a transaction lawyer who’s eager to learn about art and to serve a key community institution.

He has served on the board of regents of St. Ignatius High School, of which he’s a graduate, plus the board of directors of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, and in leadership roles at the Cleveland United Way.

In 1981, Kestner married the former Denise Dalhart, a former teacher of the hearing impaired in the Mayfield school system and a part-time teacher in Hudson who now teaches pre-school in Chagrin Falls. The Kestners have three sons, Alex, 27; Jonathan, 25; and Joe, 22.

In his free time, Kestner fly-fishes, primarily in central Pennsylvania.

He acknowledges that the museum will now be taking up a lot of his time.

“It’s pretty amazing to think in Cleveland, Ohio, we have one of the five top comprehensive art collections in the country,” he said. “I want to make sure we continue the tradition.”

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